Under the water line

 The wharf, on the sunny side, is a quiet place, a watery parking lot. There are a few people, gulls, a dog or two, maybe even a cat. Sometimes a heron.

But on the underside; that's another story. There's more busy and crowded biodiversity there than in the entire city of Ankh-Morpork*.

Plumose anemones, sponges and much more, on the side of a float.

At first glance, this is a mess. Too much going on; too crowded, too many shapes. So I've added labels to the photo. It might be a good idea to click on it to bring it up to full size.

There's even a nudibranch!

Another anemone, same species, with friends.

And here it is, with labels. Help me out here!

And another photo, from a wharf edge in full sun:

A few barnacles grow above the water line, in the splash zone.

And here it is, labelled:

The worms like the dark better.

Summing up: there are anemones, sponges, tunicates, barnacles and mussels and limpets, assorted feather duster worms, at least one nudibranch, a sea urchin, hydroids, assorted algae. Present, but not visible, are a full contingent of amphipods, copepods, assorted worms out of tubes, assorted worms in tubes, snails, bryozoans, probably some isopods, maybe a few shrimp. The usual crabs are not the one here, which I think, seeing only the underside, is probably a shore crab; the usual crabs are kelp crabs, longer-legged for crawling on floaters, and an olive-green colour which makes them hard to see. 

But there is still more! I'll upload a few more photos tomorrow.

*Which includes trolls, dwarfs, golems, werewolves, vampires, banshees, gnolls, gnomes, Wee Free Men, zombies, talking dogs, ditto ravens, gargoyles, elves, goblins, orcs, Death, incarnated auditors, the 5 horsemen, bogeymen, and humans, just taking into account the "intelligent" (although not necessarily wise) species. And not counting the yeti, who is wise enough to stay up in the snows.

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En el muelle, todo es tranquilo; al fin es un estacionamiento, aunque sea sobre agua. Hay algunas personas, gaviotas, uno que otro perro, tal vez hasta un gatito. Y a veces una garza.

Abajo del agua, ya es otra cosa. Hay un ecosistema tan diverso, tan lleno, que es difícil verlo o describirlo.

En estas fotos, tomadas al lado de dos flotadores, hay: anémonas, esponjas, un nudibranquio, cientos (aunque solo se ven algunos) de anélidos, uricordados (tunicados), lapas, mejillones, cirrípedos, hidroides, y un cangrejo. Y muchas algas, rojas y verdes, que se intermezclan con los anélidos que viven en tubos y, abiertos, se confunden con los hilitos de alga.

Hay mas animales aquí que no se pueden ver, pero por cierto están escondidos bajo el alga: anfipodos, copepodos, más anélidos, briozoos, caracoles, probablemente unos isopodos, y camarones. Los cangrejos que veo a seguido no son como el que aparece en la foto, un cangrejo que más bien se halla entre las piedras en la playa, pero un cangrejo "kelp" que tiene las patas larguísimas para mejor agarrarse a los flotadores, y de un color verde oliva, que lo hace muy difícil de ver entre el alga.

¡Hay más! Subo más fotos mañana.

4-inch ecosystem

Inverterbrate aquarium photos usually have to be cropped and cleaned. From an inch or two away, the depth of field leaves most of the photo a blur, and the tiny swimmers in the water obscure the view. In today's photo, I cropped only the top 1/3, which was only bubbly water, and erased only a couple of scratches on the outside of the glass, which were not part of the animals' environment.

About 4 inches of aquarium front.

The spots in the water are bubbles from the pump and the air stone (the big blobs and the hard-looking rods), fragments of algae looking for a place to settle down, copepods (mostly tiny streaks in random directions) and leftover shrimp pellet fragments (these will feed the smaller anemones and the barnacles).

Animals present: two hairy hermits, eight pink-tipped green anemones (which look yellow under artificial light), three Asian mud snails (Batillaria attramentaria), one channeled dogwinkle (Nucella canaliculata), one limpet, barnacles (two species), several unidentifiable tentacles or worms or edges of half-hidden critters; some of these may be tiny orange-striped green anemones. A vague brownish shadow in the background, upper left, is the edge of the plumose anemone. The oyster shell on the right harbours a large flatworm on its underside. In the blurry sand and broken shells in front, a couple of amphipods blend in completely until they move.

The Japanese nassa snails have hidden themselves underneath the sand again.

Plants: bright green algae that grows on every surface, including the glass, pink encrusting algae on the oyster shell and the hermit's adopted shells, and - look! _ on the hairs on the hermit legs, orange algae (on the oyster and barnacle shells). On the rock in centre front, a deep red encrusting algae, probably the winter stage of Turkish washcloth (Mastocarpus papillatus). In back, the enthusiastic Rose seaweed (Rhodymenia californica), something orange, probably bits of leftover kelp holdfast, glimpses of eelgrass and sea lettuce.

This is why I keep a stool pulled up so that I can sit with my nose to the glass.